Adrienne Rich: Making the Connections

A sense of the larger picture is growing among US citizens, notably, though not only, among a young generation, along with a revulsion against official and corporate contempt for the will and welfare of ordinary citizens, for the value of human life itself. The antiwar movement of this century is a movement to reclaim democracy and to push it further. It has no token national leaders; it is various in its formations and organizing principles, often originating and working locally, yet in touch with other groups. It is connected through free giveaway papers like the San Francisco-based, nationally distributed War Times, through Internet sites and e-mail correspondence, through teach-ins, vigils, strikes, newsletters, cell phones, radio, cartoon strips, art and bumper stickers, benefits and much else.

Links between militarization, racism, economic and gender inequity, perversion of the criminal justice system and the electoral system are made not because of laundry-list sectarian opportunism but because, more and more, the actual connections are being laid bare by the activities of the current Administration and its corporate family. The origins of this antiwar movement and all it implies lie in the extremism of a long-unresponsive government, a stumbling and incoherent empire, most of whose citizens don't want an empire at such cost, if they want one at all.